The Craftsman
by Belphegor Asmeroth Ezekiel
Summary: They say " To be a magus is to walk with death". However for one who was born of death, lives with death everyday and is practically dead himself, the definition is maybe a bit lenient in nature. Witness the journey of Shirou Emiya, an ordinary spell caster with no talent for magic as he makes his way to be a proper magus. Rated T to be safe for now.


Disclaimer: I don't own Fate/stay night, it belongs to TYPE MOON game franchise and its writer Kinoku Nasu, the only thing I own is this story.

* * *

**Prologue: Birth of a magus**

Fire. Fire as hot as the flames of hell itself burnt all over the region.

Happy families, pleasant acquaintances and friends.

Gone. Poof. Like a sudden gust of wind.

Working docks, warehouses, factories, markets, apartments, shrines.

Turned to dust, burned to ash, nothing but broken debris.

It was a fiery storm, a festival for demons from the pits of hell itself to feast over the flesh and souls of the victims.

No matter what they tried nothing worked.

They prayed, and they were crushed.

They begged, and they were burned to a crisp.

Some reached out to help others, their loved ones.

Others fled without a hint of guilt.

But it was all for naught, for the single black orb floating over them destroyed all such naïve notions of hope and love.

For in the end none survived.

Well none but one.

Or did he ?

It was a hollow puppet devoid of any such human notions like love, hope or fear.

Its golden eyes were empty of anything but the will to survive.

Alas! One could only hold out for so long in that hellish storm of fire.

More so when the one in question was only a seven year old child.

In hopes of survival the little red haired boy had given up all his feelings, memories and just about anything that even remotely tied one to a human being.

He was no longer human.

It was no longer alive.

It had no soul for it had died.

And as the last vestiges of hope left its mind and its torso fell, so did its resolve to live.

For it had nothing left to lose.

The 'boy' closed its eyes, unaware of its pain and agony, however aware of its end.

With acceptance to its fate it slid down, but not before in a last ditz effort in a twisted reflex mimicking human survival reached out its hand to the dull sky with the black orb.

It had realized what it meant to be dead to the world.

It had understood what death really was.

It was a genuine monster in everything but its appearance.

* * *

Elsewhere, in the centre of that storm, in its eye per say remained a sole person, not another victim, not a survivor but an outsider, a man draped in black and grey.

A man by the name of Kiritsugu Emiya.

It wouldn't have been wrong if someone had mistook him for the reaper in the ensuing chaos if one had lived to witness the calamity.

After all this great conflagration was his doing.

Not intentional but still true.

It was his fault.

Regardless of his own intent.

Contrary to the world seeing him as a ruthless mercenary, terrorist and an assassin, he was one with a kind soul, twisted but kind.

Oh. He was also a magus, one who altered the reality and set rules of the world.

However rather than researching on the secrets of magic, he spent his time taking down supernatural and mundane threats both with his powers over innate time manipulation as well as his use of fire arms and tactics of guerrilla warfare, a rare skill amongst magi.

A set of skills that made him a legend and earned him the infamous title of 'The Magus Killer'.

He was someone who had dedicated his entire life in the pursuit of delivering justice to countless evil doers as an 'Ally of Justice', preferably minimizing casualties and getting rid of the root of the problem by pure grit and a mind of steel, ruthlessly, mercilessly and efficiently killing all those he deemed as a threat to human lives.

In the end it left him with nothing but ashes, a cursed dying man who had lost everything.

In a desperate attempt to bring peace to the world he had participated in a secret war in the city of Fuyuki in Japan, a war for an omnipotent wish granting device crafted through ancient magic, the Holy Grail.

He fought, he backstabbed and he bled, he witnessed all the horrors of that bloody tournament shutting down his heart and emotions, even when he had lost his wife and comrade.

But in the end what awaited him was the complete opposite of what he had desired, what he thought was the ultimate good the ultimate miracle was nothing less than the vessel housing all the world's evil.

And so in an attempt to rectify his mistake he commanded his Servant, a familiar spirit of an ancient hero from beyond a plane through space and time, contacted to help the participants to help fight for the prize, to destroy it.

However in doing so he earned the ire of the dark deity residing within that vessel corrupting it, an entity in the form of a shape shifting shadow, the Persian God of Darkness Angra Mainyu.

He who shoulders all the evil in the world, an entity if released from the grail by claiming it as a prize would have bled the world dry in a dark plague.

And so in a twisted way, Kiritsugu Emiya had succeeded in saving the world and had become the hero he always yearned to be.

Earning the ire of that deity for rejecting it, a curse of death, weakness and suffering to his body along with a disaster of destructive fire enveloping the surrounding district of Shinto, leaving him as a magic less cripple and a wounded man both in body and soul.

And thus here he lay, a man utterly defeated both in purpose and in life, with no family save a daughter forever lost to him and a dream shattered through the cruel whims of harsh reality, with nothing but the desire to save anyone, as many lives as he can to attain retribution.

Alas. There was none to save as despite his best efforts he could find no one in that hell of his own making, leaving him a broken soul who had lost all hope for salvation.

And so he slumped over a piece of burning debris, crying his eyes out with tears unshed for decades, for the loss of all he held dear and for the mistake he had help wrought.

He wept and screamed out his woes to the heavens, looking upwards to the illusion of a blackened sun which he knew as what it was in reality.

He realized on that day what one man could only hope to achieve for so long.

He had understood what saving really entailed.

After all in the end he was only human.

* * *

The story of these two broken souls is a rather well known story in the multiverse.

In this great tale throughout the Kaleidoscope the broken child would grow up to follow in that equally broken man's footsteps, reaching a similar end.

In many others the dangers inherited from said man brought about the boy's end in terrible ways.

The choices however always had the same conclusion, an answer to the concept of 'Salvation', different conclusions, paths, trials and different answers.

Salvation for one or for the many.

Never before had the statement been truer that the child is the father of the man.

Only three choices were left to the child in the end.

_To become a beast of Alaya._

_To become the concept for the ideal 'Ally of Justice' to humanity._

_To accept the rule of death._

From the very moment the man saved or rather brought the child into the world, the child's fate had been sealed.

However contrary to popular belief fate is a fickle existence, it isn't obsolete.

And so for a singular change in the flow of one world in the vast stream of reality a miracle happened.

All of a sudden, a little shape could be seen rising in the distance, like a rising snake it coiled and shook throughout the smoke.

Kiritsugu's tear stained eyes widened and with gusto he ran towards it, to his great delight it was a little boy.

And…. And he was alive!

With relief and elation he ran out to the boy grasping his flailing hand before it could fall with a firm grip.

" He's alive! My God he's alive! Thank you." He said while gripping his hand with a tearful face and elated smile.

However….

The boy never got to see his face for at that moment he had closed them.

Sometimes the tiniest of changes can change the world.

And then he opened them just in time to see a strange man holding him in place, but that wasn't his main concern for what had really got his attention was an object of pure gold shining ethereally being pushed into his tiny frame.

It was unbelievable.

For just then his pains slowly started fading and a warm fuzzy feeling coursed through him.

'_What was that?'_

'_Who is this man?'_

'_How did he do that?'_

Questions started coming to the front of his mind, childish imagination once lost came back in great vigor and feelings once lost to fire and terror rose once again in his heart.

His heart.

As in having feelings, emotions, hopes and dreams.

But most of all.

Potential.

The potential of a human being.

It was the most beautiful feeling in his entire life, to witness a miracle before his very eyes.

' _I wish I could make a miracle like that happen some day'_

And like that the gears of a new destiny turned in that birthplace of brimstone and fire.

* * *

**Hey everyone, I've been reading for a long time and couldn't find the right moment to start writing again. Well just so much happened, my exams came and went, I left for elsewhere for some time but most of all I decided to work on my plot for my three main projects. Yeah you guys heard it, three, and apparently this fic here is one of the big three I've been working on. Excluding my humor fic which I may or may not update for a long time, I'm currently working on this one, a Fate/Stay Night and Rosario + Vampire crossover fic and a fate fic with a completely different person as a main character and no its not an OC but an in story character. I recently started watching the new UBW anime and must admit Ufotable has really outdone themselves, with all the mind blowing fight scenes, memorable moments, lavish art, great music and a proper display of a complicated character like Shirou. I'll admit that this chapter is short but rest assured I'll have the next one out in a few days, three at most. By the way I updated my account and will be giving news on the arrival of future fics from now onward. **


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